


Bring Him Back

by rushiru



Category: Merlin - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, M/M, Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 16:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rushiru/pseuds/rushiru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Merlin get into some trouble (as usual), Arthur is near death (as usual) but this time. . . Can Merlin save him? And at what cost? A short story. Please read! Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Him Back

**Author's Note:**

> Just an idea I had. . . How many times it could have gone this way, eh? sigh . .

_Your eyes stare right through me_  
Ignoring my failed attempts to  
Breathe back life into your veins 

_But I can't start your cold heart beating_  
You're so far gone but I'm not leaving  
When all I know is you 

Merlin gasped back into consciousness, his lungs burning and eyes streaming; bleeding wet tracks down his face, streaked with dirt and grime. The world rocked before him and he felt as if the earth he lay on was spinning round and round. His vision was blurry, but Merlin could make out the clear blue of the sky above and the dark shadows of trees towering over him, their spindly branches reaching like hands into the clouds. As pain stabbed into his temples, Merlin wondered vaguely if he'd managed to do it. A familiar pink blur blotted in front of his face, peering down at him. He caught the swirling flash of blood-red cloaks in the distant background of mist and leaves. The pink blur had lips that seemed to be saying something, forming words, only Merlin couldn't catch it - he could only hear a broken sort of muffled mumbling. He tried to grasp at the edges of the words, fumbling, but they drowned in the high-pitched whine that was bouncing off the inside of his skull. The pink shape shouting at him, looking down at him, swam into focus. It grew paler; its skin looked waxy. Blue eyes were shining fiercely from the ill-looking face. But it was the shock of golden, flaming hair that jolted the synapses in Merlin's brain back to one hundred percent capacity.

 _Arthur_! He tried to shout, tried to open his mouth, convey the relief that was buzzing about his mind to his throat. But his voice box was keeping silent. Everything then suddenly ran clear, like the icy waters of the Eastern stream, freshly broken from the freeze of Winter and thawing from Spring's summery breath; trickling down over the rocks and fissures in a brilliant clarity. He had done it! _He'd done it!_ He saved Arthur! He'd brought him back. Merlin had been so certain he was dead - so certain that he wouldn't heal.

But it had to work, he knew it, it would have to. And it did.

He almost killed himself in the process of doing it, but he'd done it. Arthur was alive. They both were. Merlin's magic had saved them again; both of them, swept along in the tidal wave of Merlin's power.

 _Arthur_ , he whispered. The frantic figure didn't seem to hear him; he was gently shaking Merlin's shoulders, perhaps alarmed because of the rigidity of Merlin's body, or because of how cold, how white he was as he lay, unmoving, on the muddy bed of earth. A sort of croaky, hissing noise ground its way out of Merlin's throat, sounding like gravel shuddering together under the heel of a boot. Like the grate of metal against stone. It took a second for Arthur to work out that that was Merlin drawing in a breath. He turned to yell back over his shoulder at the blossoming red of cloaks, the dragon sigil bold and growling against the woven fabric, that Merlin was indeed, alive.

That's what I've been trying to tell you. _Dollophead_ , Merlin thought happily, relief burning through his veins like a fever. He felt hot, his insides churning with the fiery knowledge that Arthur himself, was still living. It racked up against him in waves; Merlin had saved him. Again.

"Arthur," Merlin managed to gasp out, his throat feeling raw and blackened away - as if the words he had spoken to save Arthur had cooked him from the inside out. Turned him into charcoal, leaving only the burnt bits of bone and odd strips of sizzling flesh behind for the birds to pick through.

"Arthur!" He croaked again, his hands, fingers, scrambling up over Arthur's chainmail and armor, grappling the cool metal with as much strength as his weakened muscles could allow for.

"Merlin! You're alright, it's al-" Arthur tried to soothe, his ocean-coloured eyes worried at the unforgiving bruises on the young warlock's face - they seemed to paint his skin a mottled purple-grey, thickly lined by an ugly green. Arthur's own face was slick with sweat, probably partly due to his only-recent recovery, but the more likely due to his recent return to the land of the living.

His mortal soul had left his body. If only for a second or two.

Not that he knew that.

"-Arthur!" Merlin cut him off, his voice almost a yell. Full of pain and anguish - and laughter. Knee-weakening relief. And without even thinking, his hands still struggling at Arthur's armor - thin fingers doing their very best to reach up the future King of Camelot's throat - Merlin pulled Arthur the extra couple of inches closer and pressed their mouths, heavily, and wetly, together. Neither of them had much oxygen stored in their newly-working lungs anyway, but what little they did possess vanished instantly, leaving them rather desperate for more.

"Merlin! What are you doing?"

"Sorry," Merlin breathed, "I-I just-I got carried away-"

"I meant" -Arthur seized the front of his shirt- "don't be such a girl about it." He kissed Merlin, dragging him upright and off the cold ground. It was softer than before and held more warmth in it than Merlin would have expected, stronger too. As was appropriate. It felt how Merlin imagined kissing fire would be (all the scents were there, all the colours too), head fully immersed in the crackle of the flames, but without the danger of the intense heat, or y'know, being burnt alive. For Arthur it merely felt like breathing out after a very, very long time. Merlin's eyes glowed golden under his eyelids.

They separated and Arthur pulled him into a hug, a shout of laughter barking through his gleaming mouth. "I'd thought we lost you! For a second there!"

"Not me," Merlin said, "never. But I think there is the possibility of some maybe not-so-subtle internal damage." And he gestured, wincing the tiniest of fractions, to his side where blood soaked through his shirt. Old blood from hours before, but still blood. Merlin still had a gaping hole in his side. And he felt like he was going to collapse every step further he took. Finally, with a groaning grunt of effort (Arthur himself felt drained as well for some peculiar reason) Arthur hoisted Merlin over his shoulder, the idiot's hip bone digging into the soft spot between his shoulder and throat, and carried him to the horses. With Merlin safely folded over the back of a chestnut roan, Arthur and his Knights rode off, back to Camelot. Unaware that he had, once more, cheated death at the hands of a young boy -

Merlin.


End file.
